Becoming

I suppose I ought not be surprised that so much of my energy has been put into a world that is still becoming. It is an important survival skill that I have as a human, that I can anticipate what might happen and adapt. I avoid danger, I avoid failure by looking at events that haven’t happened but are only in a state of probable becoming. I also think that by paying attention to what is still becoming, I often miss what is happening right now.

I’m trying to change that.

So much of my life has been an experience of an unfolding of a world that is still in a state of becoming. So much attention and attempted awareness has been directed to what I anticipate or expect might happen. I know I am not alone in this. I have heard many times that the anticipation of some pleasurable experience is more powerful than the actual experience. The same thing is said of things I dread.

I think I have been living a large part of my life in this state, in this phase of becoming. Slowly, I am putting more of my awareness and attention into what is happening right now. I still make plans for the future. I think of meeting friends for tea or for an outing. But my life is less a time of becoming and the flow of energy is more in what has already become right now. I absorb more of what is happening in the present.

I am more attentive to the miracle of being here, not so much concerned about what is becoming. I care less about what I will become and what I will experience, and I care more about what I experience now.

I often attempt to manage, to control, to adapt to what is yet to be. This can be useful, but it often limits the scope of my true experience to my prior-conceived notion of what is becoming, not what actually is. When my notion of the future, what is becoming, turns out to be wrong, I am more inclined to resist what has actually become.

Based on what I expect reality to become, I limit my experiences and in a real manner shape my experiences because of what I anticipated. The unfolding of the moment is shaped by what I expect, and my reality is but a small sample of what is possible. I limit what has become my reality.

Want

If you would be a companion of mine, this is what I want of you: I want you to be fully present, just as you are. I want us each to be fully present, and fully aware of one another’s presence. I want us to jointly experience the miracle of being there.

I want this to be true for all my companions. I want it to be true when we are standing together in a similar location or when we are separated by miles or years. I want the time we spend together to be as though there is no other time. I want there to be no past, no future. This is our one and only time and I want us to make the most of it. There is no tomorrow to rely on or anticipate. I want this to be the only time.

I want my companions to be part of a common awareness. I want us to know one another as we really are. I want to know and be known as fully as humans can be aware.

I want the barriers of self-protection to vanish, the shell of pretend to dissolve, the veil of illusion to disappear. I want no obscure vaults where treasures are kept, hidden and safe. If there are walls that might define who we are, they should be as transparent for us as crystal and as porous as mist. I want my companions to be as clear to me and I to them as our reflection in a mirror.

I want us to be separate in appearance, but truly the same reality, living in the same realm of possibilities. I want us to see one another with unshielded eyes, being aware of what it means to be who we are. I want us to recognize ourselves in each other as we become aware face to face.

I want there to be no resistance. Only yes.

Recovery

I had been thinking of how my immersion in mindfulness is part of my uncovering my feminine. I now think of it more as a process of recovery. I am reclaiming what was lost. The feminine of my extreme youth is slowly re-emerging and I am taking possession, claiming, embracing it. I am deliberately recovering what appeared to be lost.

I am engaged in no accidental process of discovery. This is no sudden or gradual process of searching for something new. I am deliberately looking, feeling, searching for what was lost and retaking possession of what is mine. I am not exploring something outside of myself and applying it to myself. I am recovering my birthright to the feminine.

There are some simple and superficial things I do. I no longer hesitate to look for hats and scarfs in the women’s clothing section. Buying and using a hair dryer is more than just a way to dry my hair. I typically feel more at ease hanging out with women.

The recovery goes much deeper, however. I have for months been learning to feel and experience living at a deeper level. This is a level I associate with the feminine. I have little fear of the emotional aspects of me and I am probing that arena daily. I go deeper and deeper. I am not afraid of what might be considered a typically feminine response.

Today I allowed tears of joy to flow down my cheeks while I listened to a friend describe a profound experience in her life. It is not uncommon for this to happen, often beyond my control.

I also see all this as part of owning the feminine virtues that have long been a peripheral part of how I have lived. I am recognizing and recovering that genuine feminine part of who I am. I have seldom relied on the masculine virtues, sometimes even rejected them. Now I understand more deeply what that was about, what was really happening. My feminine had been stifled but it was not gone.

Now it is being recovered.

Lattice

I once had a beginners mind. I want to reclaim it.

The awareness of that beginners mind was blinding. The world I experienced had no dimension, no form. All possibilities, all potential lay in front of me. I was for a brief time aware of everything, independent of what I now regard as space and time.

Then my neural network began to filter all that awareness, and that filtered world slowly came into a focus I could relate to. It was a lattice network that allowed me to move through that world with some understanding, however limited it was. I learned to interact with the world through this lattice and I survived.

My young life was lived behind a lattice of rules and expectations. This lattice meant that I thought I knew how to interpret the world and experience it. I never realized how much the lattice may have both protected me and seriously limited my awareness. The lattice has guided me in how I have experienced the world, how I have interpreted what I experienced, and how I was to act.

My chosen task is now to see the universe in an unfiltered manner. Perhaps not all at once, but slowly as I learn the practice of deep concentration. I am gradually penetrating the realm of the formless and undefined. I want to see without either the benefit or the limitations of the lattice that has become so much a part of my life.

I want to see reality in all its formless nature, without filters and without rules. I want to see the presence that is there beyond the forms and shapes I have learned to accept. I want to move forward without rules, not just in how I experience the world but also in how I respond to that formless world.

I am for sure changing how I am accustomed to think, and the freedom is joyful and energizing. This movement to another and distant shore is the challenge presented in the Heart Sutra.

My challenge is to experience a world with no beginning and no end, no birth and no death, no forms. My challenge is to see beyond the illusion the lattice of my life has created, to walk into Target with an awareness that goes beyond the cold pavement that rises to be touched by my feet.

I am finding that this is not just about thinking and how to think. It is beginning to feel more like not thinking at all. My whole body becomes an avenue of awareness, and there is no lattice to interpret what manifests before me. I am developing a comfort, a relaxed feeling associated with the absence of the lattice of forms.

This realm of no-lattice is not actually a new way to think, but is becoming a relaxed way of not thinking at all.

Invitations

For much of my day, every move I make is in response to a constant invitation to enter into the realm of the spiritual. My body is becoming accustomed to being attentive to a reality that had previously escaped me. For most of my life, I never understood how the spiritual, unseen realm is simply manifested in what I see as physical.

Only my mind regards my experiences as physical. All this time I have been experiencing the tip of the spiritual and never quite realized it. I was being invited into the realm of the spiritual and got stuck in the merely physical manifestation.

I now regard my body as a receptor, a receiver of sorts for the energy that makes up the universe. I constantly experience the unseen energy of the universe, and it shows up in my mind as an experience, as awareness. I don’t think I’ve understood how to interpret the coded signals.

For most of my life, it has been possible for me to stop at the perception of the physical manifestation and not accept the invitation to experience the unseen spiritual. I have mostly experienced the spiritual reality only as it appeared as a physical manifestation. I have seldom opened my mind to become aware of the deeper energies that are the foundation of my relationship experiences. I simply have not been tuned in, and I mostly passed on the invitation.

I think that I have in my body / mind the ability to experience the spiritual. I mostly, however, have stopped at the sense perceptions coming through my eyes, my ears, my imagination. The intricate and delicate integration of the spiritual and physical are slowly becoming easier for me to grasp. I am learning to live in that relationship.

Art can be an invitation to realize the combination of physical and spiritual. I recently listened to a youTube presentation on Bernini’s rapture of St. Teresa. It was so clear to me that the words of the lecture were pointing to the relationship between the spiritual and physical.

Bernini expressed that relationship in a combination of religious metaphor and marble. The intermingling integration is so clearly represented. I’ve heard people refer to the marble statue as a sexual expression. I think that is true, but it is so much more. The rapture of the figure is a wonderful combination and unity of the physical and spiritual reality.

I often find that music is an invitation to experience the spiritual energy of the universe. It is a further invitation to sing, to dance, to be aligned with the flow of energy that is suggested by the sounds. I do have to relax and allow my body / mind to plunge uninterrupted beyond the physicality of the sounds. Then my heart soars with music. I easily move through the physical manifestation into an experience of the spiritual.

I am pleased that I am learning how to accept the invitation into the realm of the spiritual. I am also beginning to see myself as an invitation for others to enter that same spiritual realm. I want to be a portal for their awareness. I realize that my own vulnerability is required to be such a portal. I must be fully present. Allowing that presence to be seen is a vulnerable action.

The universe is waiting, offering me an invitation. I too will wait and by being transparently present pass that invitation on to others.

Chance

It is becoming somewhat irrelevant for me to think of things happening by chance. Having good luck has little or no meaning for me. Once an experience has happened, it is meaningless to consider any aspect of chance. It already is, it has happened. It is part of my life, there is no reconsideration, there is no turning back. I try to remember to simply settle in and absorb the experience as best I can.

I sometimes think of future events as unpredictable, a matter of probably. But this is more of a mind game and has little to do with reality, with what is happening right now. As unpredictable as they might seem, there really are no chance encounters, no chance happenings, no chance experiences. There is not, at any moment, any improbable or unpredictable event. It is simply happening.

For me, it is best to disregard any element of chance and simply seize the moment. Be open to it. It will never happen again in my experience. There is no “what if” things were different. There is no reason to look for another chance, another opportunity. This is the moment, the encounter, the experience. It is best for me to enter into it without hesitation or question. It is everything I have.

This is as good as this moment gets, and I had best not hold back or resist it. Because this experience exists, there is no doubt that it was meant to be. I want to be open to this very moment, this experience, this encounter. This is not a time to be casual about what is happening. This is not a time to be waiting for something better to happen, for someone better to come along, for the world to get more indulgent of me.

Urging me to “seize the day” is painting with too wide a brush, it is too wide a mandate, too wide a way of living. I want to seize every moment, to fully experience what it is like to be alive.

I want to walk around as though this is the most delightful step I could ever make right now. I want to meet people as though this is this is the most engaging encounter I could have. I want to savor every event with my full attention and pleasure. After all, it is the only event. It is all I have, it is my only opportunity. I don’t get another chance.

Physiology

Could it really be that simple? Could it be that the practice I follow by deepening concentration is facilitated by my own physiology? Could it be that my practice of deepening my concentration to become more aware is promoted by the flow of dopamine throughout my body?

When dopamine is released into my physical system, I feel rewarded. I have a rush of glee and a brush with ecstasy. I am convinced this happens when I meditate and when I carry mindfulness into my daily activities. How marvelous that I both feel rewarded and find it easier to release my tendency of clinging. Dopamine helps me move into habitual mindfulness, and is perhaps becoming my natural drug of choice.

I think my own physiology is geared to nudge me along the path to insight and wisdom. It is just part of being human. I marvel how this has come out of the evolutionary process as humans have evolved to greater consciousness. We are destined to be mindful.

It actually is nothing new for me to notice and experience how body and mind seem to be one entity. They are one reality, one entity. The two concepts are intimately intertwined in my experience, and current science is moving in that direction. It is simply natural that my body and mind would work together as one entity to move me into that awareness, into that consciousness the spiritual teachers call insight.

The mystics may have called it rapture, with an other-worldly overlay. They explained the experience in the religious metaphors common in their day. For me it is an essentially human experience, deeply embedded in my own inherited physiology.

Perhaps this is part of an explanation of why meditation and eroticism are beginning to seem so intertwined. I have been surprised to notice that the two have so much in common. Perhaps they are simply different aspects of the same process that naturally guides me to good outcome for humans.

The ecstasy of bodies touching can be much more than just a base sensory experience. I notice this whenever I put my hand on someone’s arm. The physicality of it is but a small aspect of an awareness that is latent in the contact. The physical contact can readily bring the two entities into a deep absorption of the other. It is easy to grasp the base physicality, but it is also inviting to move to a deeper kind of awareness.

The same physiology that may reward and move me to reproduce also drives me and rewards me for becoming aware of the deep entanglement we have with one another.

I am noticing that my practice of meditation, my deepening of concentration is rooted in and involved with my physiology. I am aware of this as I lie in bed, slowly becoming awake. The more I awake, become aware of my comforter, notice the extent of my body, observe the walls of my room, the more my sense of well-being increases. I am being rewarded for becoming mindful and aware.

I am developing the habit of awareness, and the flow of dopamine reinforces that practice. My physiology supports and encourages my awareness.

I’ve noticed for some time how it is such a pleasant experience to feel the touch of my surroundings, the sight of my room, the sound of passing cars. I don’t think this is only an abstract or spiritual experience. I feel it through my whole body. I know it is rooted in my physiology. My mindfulness is being supported by the release of rewarding dopamine.

Not a bad way to go through the day.

Eyed

It would probably be more common for me to comment on what it means to make eye contact. That sounds to me like a mellowed down version of what actually takes place for me. I am noticing how I use my eyes to actively communicate and others do the same.

When I am eyed, I can feel someone affirming my presence. I use my eyes to tell someone I am very aware they are there. For me, it is no casual and neutral ‘making eye contact.’ It is an act of being aware and communicating that awareness. I am being eyed. I have eyed others.

This was so apparent to me while contra dancing on Saturday evening. In the dance there is a lot of contact with one another. But before our hands ever touch one another, the eyes consistently lock on to the other. Before I was ever touched I was eyed.

The connection happened in an instant. The messages were all over the map. Mostly the eyeing said how good it was to meet at this instance, in this place, in this dance. It was one awareness after another. It was one affirmation after another. It was done by eyes alone.

I have two friends that I share conversations with on FaceTime. Seeing an active image of one another adds so much to the words we speak. So much is said by eyeing and being eyed. I seem to be so much more aware of the presence of the other person, even though that perception of presence goes over miles of space.

I was walking with a friend recently. We were walking side by side, looking forward, chatting casually as we walked. At one point, there was something I wanted to say in a way that called for us to be more intensely present to one another. I turned and, holding her by the upper arms, looked into her eyes. It was quick, spontaneous. I confirmed my presence and affirmed hers. The words I spoke were only part of the message. We each were eyed.

Much has been made of the eyes being the ‘window to the soul,’ and I think that is true. Vacant eyes indicate disinterest or absence. Alert eyes convey attention and affirmation. Expressive eyes convey shared vitality. Eyes tell me when someone is aware I am present and invite an avenue of awareness.

My eyes are my first avenue of being aware of people. My eyes are perhaps my most open expression of awareness of another’s presence. People I meet are constantly being eyed by me, and I hope they know it. It is how I say “I know you are there.”

Engage

When I wake in the morning, I deliberately enter a sphere of engagement. I slowly begin to engage with myself and with the world around me. I knowingly explore a sensory adventure of stretching under the heavy covers, being aware of my moving arms and legs and the weight of the comforter. The chill of the room is present only in my mind for a time, but I soon become engaged with it with a bit of hesitation.

Slowly, I am aware of my sensory system turning on and I become very aware and engaged with my body, its extremes, its movement. Soon I am stretching on the floor, feeling the texture of the rugs, moving my arms and legs in my familiar and ritualized movements.

Along the way, my thinking is engaged as I become aware of the words and experiences of poets I read daily. I saunter off into thoughts of my own and become freely engaged in the labyrinth of my own mental and heart awareness. I hardly ever know where that might take me. Sometimes I plunge so deeply that I need to take a deep breath, as I just did.

Before I sit on my cushion, I welcome past and present companions into my evolving day, into my sphere of engagement. That sphere of engagement becomes wider and populated by those I love, an activity I will repeat many times though the day in real time.

My sphere of engagement has many portals into my surrounding world. I often check that those portals are open and that rocks, plants and people may freely pass through. I remind myself, and allow myself to feel that openness as I begin a new and welcoming day.

It is a beginning of resolve as I confirm that my heart is not dishonored with hatred. I assert my intention to be a guardian of nature, a healer of misery, a messenger of wonder, an architect of peace, a release from all suffering and a fountain of loving kindness. In this way, I define the contours of my evolving engagement in specific terms and with clear intentions.

Apart from these intentions, my sphere of engagement has few rules or defined limits. I deliberately make it something of a challenge, a hobby and a source of amusement to push aside or dissolve the limits society might put on how I should be engaged. There are so many social norms of engagement such as those associated with my age, my gender, my social status, my choice of companions, the appearance of my garden.

There are some social rules that I think are useful, such as not killing, not lying, not stealing. But there are so many limits and expectations society would place on my engagements that are not helpful to me and a distraction. I regard most of them with suspicion, distain or humor.

As I move through my day, I attempt to be aware of everyone and everything within my sphere of engagement. I welcome anyone who wishes to be so engaged. I take great delight in what is constantly becoming my real world.

Circle

Today I feel like I am surrounded by a lovely garden of delights, more or less like a circle. It is a garden of engagement. While it is a place that has arisen from my experience, it is also a circle into which I am constantly inviting others to enter.

I have been involved with the world in a way that creates great happiness. My garden of daily living has brought me much joy, and I am intent on sharing that happiness with others. I am deeply engaged with my garden, and I want others to find in it the same delight that has been my experience.

The circle is not a boundary but rather an open door into which others can enter. It reflects what has happened as I have become more attentive and aware of the world. The door of my heart clearly opens outward, open and wide, and others are free to enter.

The kind of engagement inside the circle into which I welcome others is a source of deep awareness and happiness, and people are free and welcome to enter. I try to place few restrictions, but some are more willing to step inside the circle than others.

The ground inside of the circle is soft and green. There are few rules. The air is fresh and mild. The light is bright and warm. I know because I have been living in this circle and it has become my garden home.